If the software isn’t perfect, someone might die

“If the software isn’t perfect, someone might die.” A paraphrased quote from this excellent article from back in ’96 about how the space shuttle software team has to write 100% bug free code. They make it sound easy, but near the end of the article, there is this quick little blip that clarifies the cost associated with having this level of QA: “the groups $35 million per year budget is a trivial slice of the NASA pie, but on a dollars-per-line basis, it makes the group among the nation’s most expensive software organizations.”

I’m not poo-pooing the techniques outlined in the article; on the contrary, I think the article is excellent at pointing out some methodologies that can be adopted to avoid a lot of potential problems.

Next post – Why I don’t agree with Calvinism and the Reformed Mentality. At least this is a thought process I’ve been working on for a while and hope will be my next blog post. I might have to keep you in suspence for a while though. Besides, the last few blogs have been technology related and I need to assure you readers that I do spend a signficant number of brain cells on non-technology related subjects.